Madness
by A Lucky Stone
Summary: When Nick comes back through the anomaly, Stephen doesn't at first realise just how different the world that Nick remembers was, and Nick doesn't remember their relationship... StephenNick. Spoilers for 2.01. Concrit appreciated! -- EDITED part 1 now up.


I strode purposefully through the shopping centre, matching my pace to Cutter's. The two of us were just about far enough ahead of Abby and Connor for me to speak safely. I didn't want them to hear – I really didn't. But this was too important to wait any longer, considering how strangely Nick was acting. "We okay?" I asked, but I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"About what?" Cutter didn't look round.

"You can't ignore what happened." We needed to talk. What had happened between me and Helen shouldn't affect what there was between us – it was a long time ago, before we were anything more than student and professor. I had got over her, and I thought he had too. But that didn't change the fact that I had had an affair with his wife, and kept it from him. I needed to know where we stood.

"Oh, you mean the fact that you slept with my wife? Stephen, if you're looking for closure I'm a little bit busy."

That stung. Closure was the last thing I wanted. What we had couldn't end just because of that. "…I don't blame you for being angry." It was a pathetic attempt at reconciliation, but I meant it. I would have been angry, too. It was the worst betrayal – your lover and your wife. And the way he'd found out…

"Look, Helen never cared about either of us. She's mad."

"Mad?" He was the one who was acting mad. I frowned. He seemed so… disconnected, closed off from me. As if he was trying to pretend that nothing had ever happened between us.

"Took off through an anomaly for eight years, does that strike you as well-balanced? Just forget it. I'm finished with the past. It's just… I don't know if it's finished with me."

With that, he sped up and walked away from me. I hastened after him, pretending that I didn't hear Connor's comment.

From then on, things only got worse.

---

I didn't mention it again. Nick was acting so strangely – knowing I'd get nothing more from him, and that in this mood it was impossible to predict his actions, I decided it might be best to let him calm down, get back to normal. And then – surely – we'd be able to talk about us. I told myself that we'd work it out. In all honesty, I hadn't expected him to react like this. I hadn't told him, because I didn't think it mattered. So much else had happened in between then and now – I wish it had made a difference to him.

I've always been able to read Nick, better than he would like to admit. But this time even I was lost; so I watched, guarded his back, did my job, hard as it was.

For a minute or two I honestly thought he intended to watch me die, let me get torn to pieces by the raptor. Staring at him afterwards, heart racing, body aching, it was so hard to believe him. As much as I wanted to. As much as I loved him, that moment was the realisation that maybe we didn't know each other as well as we might have thought.

Then he gave me back the gun, and when he said that if he wanted me dead he'd have shot me himself, I thought I heard the ring of truth in his words. But honestly, I doubted him still – doubted my own judgement. The only certainty left was the world around us; the shopping centre, the raptor. It was a welcome distraction.

But Nick didn't lie.

I knew when the gun jammed a second time, and realised that I'd known it all along. What had possessed me to doubt him? It was almost sickening, the realisation how just how far I'd gone along a path that I would have hated the end of. Again, the imminent danger was a diversion. He thought me foolhardy for approaching the creature, but that at least showed that he still held the vestiges of care for me. Besides, I knew I could shoot it.

It almost started to feel normal again after that. Nick's love affair with raptors and their kin has always amused me; while respecting their power, I don't see the beauty in something that is essentially a killing machine. It made me smile. "Well speaking as a mammal, I'm all in favour of cheating."

He actually smiled back. It was the reassurance I needed.

I took the opportunity to apologise, hoping this time for his acceptance, if not his forgiveness. It was harder than it should have been to admit I'd been wrong about the gun, considering that I'd never wanted my suspicions to be true. But Cutter didn't mind; I was surprised, and ashamed.

"You coulda gone with Helen. You coulda left, and you didn't. And right now, that's all that really matters. So…" He looked at me, eyes so blue and so bleak, strangely empty. "So just… forget about the rest."

It was not quite forgiveness; it was not what I had expected, either. But at least he no longer condemned me, was no longer angry. Relieved, I changed the subject. "Think she'll be back?" I asked with a shrug.

"You mean do I think she's finished messing with us? I seriously doubt it. Helen never handled rejection particularly well." And he raised his eyebrows at me pointedly. I couldn't help smiling. What else had he expected me to do?

---

After that, I thought we'd be alright. I was wrong. We were no closer to how we were supposed to be; Nick seemed just as detached as he had been all evening. I was hurt, angry, and I snapped.

"They're too dangerous! I keep taking _stupid_ risks…" I reached into the bag for my other gun, this one not loaded with tranquiliser darts.

He had followed. "Stephen, everything we do has an impact," he said, in a tone of impatient explanation, an attempt at reasoning.

"We've killed creatures before and nothing's happened." I didn't look at him.

"Yeah, how do you know that for sure?"

"Look." I stopped, and this time looked up at him. "Maybe the strain of going through the anomalies has got to you." He looked shocked, shaking his head in denial; but I couldn't believe him, what he'd said about this alternate world, this Claudia Brown. It made no sense. It was ridiculous. "Maybe you only _think_ these changes took place."

"What, do you think I _dreamed_ Claudia Brown?"

I took a breath, restraining myself, returning to the security of logic. "The whole pattern of evolution changes and just one person disappears? One person who just happens to be a friend of yours?"

"No, it's not that simple!" Nick interrupted. "The ARC didn't even exist before I left, there's a whole team of people in there I've never even met. There might be countless other things big and small, I don't _know_ yet!"

He was truly convinced. Whatever this madness of his was, he was lost in it, and I couldn't see why. If there was no reason for him to be acting this way… but it couldn't be true. I looked at him. There was nothing more either of us could say. I couldn't believe him, and he wouldn't listen to me. And there was a siren going off in the background. I picked up the gun. "Look, I'll only use it if I have to." He knew to take me at my word; with that, I turned and headed towards the noise.

---

I should have known that Cutter would want to go through the anomaly alone. When he said it, I raised no argument. But I avoided his eyes when he told us again not to follow him, because I knew I couldn't promise. He saw it, but he must have either not understood or not cared. In any case, I followed him through. Abby and Connor couldn't have stopped me even if they had tried. Nick and I are as stubborn as each other.

And I was right. "Thought you might try something like this. That's why I followed you through, just in case you had some _crazy_ idea about not coming back." I stopped and looked at him, squinting in the bright desert sun.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

I shifted position, not breaking the eye contact.

"Alright, I know exactly what you're talking about. So what, maybe it's for the best." Cutter tried to look nonchalant and failed.

"What, dying out here in this… god-forsaken place?" I took a look around. It truly was a wilderness, nothing in sight but dust and rocks.

"Look, I figure if I travel through enough anomalies maybe I can fix it, maybe I can change things back the way they were."

I could tell by his tone, his expression, that he was desperate. But… "What if there's no way back?" It had to be said. "What if this world is the only one there is? I mean, look, it's _suicide_."

"Now look I don't want to die, Stephen, I just want to try and make things right."

"Okay, well let's suppose you _do_ change things. How do you know that this time around we're not just all going to get wiped out?"

"I don't."

And then I saw it. Nick really believed this. It wasn't madness, at least not to him. And that… perhaps that was all that mattered. Whether I believed him or not, it made no difference. Suddenly I wanted to believe him, so much it hurt. It must have been a shock, I supposed, to find yourself in a world that was only half familiar and in some ways so very different… it would explain how he'd been acting. It would explain everything. Implausible as it seemed, terrifying that such things could happen, it was the only explanation. It was hard to believe that he was mad, now, with the strain in his eyes, the tension in the set of his shoulders, the fear in his stance.

"You could change a million things and still not get …'Claudia' back." I knew it would hurt him to hear it, but it had to be said; it was the truth, and he knew it. "All you know is what's happening right here, right now." I paused, but he looked away, at the anomaly, glinting like shards of broken glass, on the hill. "For once in your life, forget about the past. Because you've got a job to do."

Nick was silent, not looking at me, considering. I waited, hoping that I was right in thinking that I knew what his answer would be.

"…You're right." He paused. "But don't over do it y'know, you haven't been right in a while."

That was so much more like the Nick I remembered, and he was almost smiling as he looked up at me. I raised my hands in a gesture of defence, smiling back.

Nick glanced back up the slope, squinting into the sun. "Is it just me or is that anomaly closing?"

We ran.


End file.
